Developer: com8com1
Publisher: com8com1
Platforms: PC
Tested On: PC
Rigid Force Alpha – Review
You’re a fan of classic shoot ‘em up action games? Do you like space including all of its dangers? A little challenge doesn’t scare you? But most importantly, do you have what it takes to travel to a research station that is being threatened? If you eagerly answered ‘yes’ to these questions, indie studio com8com1 may have just released your new favourite game! Rigid Force Alpha is all of the above and so much more. It’s presenting you with nostalgia while at the same time offering you modern 3D graphics, which turns out to be a good combination. Is this one out of this world or will you land back on planet Earth after your short trip through space?
Story
We can find some sort of storyline in the main mission of the game. PSYE, your support AI, explains the mission parameters for the Rigid Force Alpha. She tells you a distress signal has reached the United Planet Freedom Forces’ fleet. This message says that the research station Vermis is under attack. In this facility the CORE program was established, which is the technology that is used to operate the Rigid Force Alpha’s systems. You must go there and prevent the program from falling into the wrong hands. However, in order to get there you’ll have to face some obstacles, like going through the asteroid mining colony Outpost Alpha. You’ll also have to fight enemies on Therra, where CORE activity has been measured.
Even though the story is nothing too special, it’s sufficient. Add to that the way it’s brought, which is by this PSYE character aided by some visuals, and it makes a nice introduction to the main mission. The story definitely adds to the likability of the game. Since there are different stages, it feels like you’re getting closer to a set goal: saving the research station.
Graphics
The game uses modern day 3D graphics. When you start playing, you can immediately tell a lot of work and time was put into designing this game. Rigid Force Alpha has a bright and colorful look including the necessary details, making it an enjoyable game to play. You fly through several different environments where the next one looks just as beautiful as the previous one.
Sound
The team behind the soundtrack of the game did a great job. Not only do the in-game sounds fit the gameplay perfectly, the synthwave songs also remind of the days where classic shoot ‘em up games were quite the hype. Rigid Force Alpha’s soundtrack gained so much popularity that the developers even released a DLC of the Original Soundtrack with no less than twenty-nine songs including bonus tracks and exclusive material.
The same goes for the voice acting. PSYE has that typical robotic sound mixed with a hint of human-like speaking. Furthermore, she sounds great and fits the atmosphere of the game beautifully.
Gameplay
Rigid Force Alpha is a classic shoot ’em up action game with modern 3D graphics. Combining the classic game style with the modern graphics, gives you a nostalgic feeling even though you’re playing with present-day graphics. The AI PSYE will be your support throughout the game. Choose to play an easy, medium or difficult version in the difficulty settings, as well as turning the dynamic camera and dialogues and cut scenes on or off. A warning though; whatever difficulty you play, it’s going to be difficult.
You play with the Rigid Force Alpha, an agile battleship created by the United Planet Freedom Forces’ best engineers and scientists. Using the CORE technology, a virtually inexhaustible source of energy, it’ll get you where you need to go. It is designed for both interstellar and planetary combat operations.
As said in the story, there is a main mission. This mission contains several stages where you’ll have to fight enemies and monsters as well as destroy stones drifting around in the atmosphere that get in your way. Move forward, backward, upward and downward in order to shoot or dodge objects and enemies. Along the way you’ll be able to gather various items to increase the power of your ship. Collect main and side armaments. The main ones include a laser, a spread shot and a rebound. The side ones include a homing missile, a seeker missile and a ground missile. Next to these, you can also find other items floating around in space (sometimes after killing your opponents). Find force shards to increase the firepower of your main armament, pick up energy orbs to fill up your energy supply and destroy capsule containers in order to get random items.
You have the choice to play a tutorial, which is some kind of introduction. Here you get familiar with the controls. This intro is available at any time and can be played when the player wants to. During this intro, PSYE starts off with information about the Rigid Force Alpha battleship. Luckily, this can be skipped if you want to, so you can go to the control information right away. If this introduction exercise is taking too long for you, you can always consult the controls in the settings menu.
A few things are shown on your screen while playing. First of all, there is the boss enemy energy bar indicating how much health your opponent has left. Another bar shows how much energy supply you have left. Secondly, your main and side armament are show, together with your remaining ships (or lives). Lastly, there is your score.
Next to the main mission, there is also an Arcade mode and a Boss Rush. The Arcade mode unlocks after finishing stage one of the main mission. Here you can try to maximize your score and compete in an online multiplayer environment. If you like the bosses in this game, try the Boss Rush mode. Here you face all bosses in a row to improve your time.
For the competition junkies there are leaderboards for every difficulty setting as well as for global, friends and your own ranks.
Conclusion
Rigid Force Alpha is a nice shoot ‘em up action game accompanied by the right music and in-game sounds. The German indie studio com8com1 manages to give the (probably older) players a nostalgic feeling. Its beautiful modern day graphics deserve a thumbs up in every possible way. The gameplay keeps you busy at all times and the game doesn’t get boring since you’re so focused on destroying objects and enemies. The Arcade Mode and Boss Rush are very nice and welcome additions to the game in case you want to mix things up. The difficulty of the game might put off some players, but it still gives us an enjoyable experience. Overall, Rigid Force Alpha doesn’t stand out that much but it is nevertheless a fun shoot ‘em up action game!
Rigid Force Alpha - Review,
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[…] Com8com keeps improving their game; Rigid Force Alpha even after release. The developers work together with the community to make their game even better. We also got a chance to review Rigid Force Alpha not too long ago, check what we thought of the game here. […]